Via the NYT we learn what constitutes “big” to a Republican congressman. (No, children…don’t go there.)
(Hell. This is the internet. Go there if the spirit moves you.)
By now, just about everyone with a pulse and an interest in politics knows that the budget debate produced much more kabuki than actual cuts. Rather the reverse in fact:
According to a Congressional Budget Office comparison, the bill would produce only $350 million in tangible savings this year, in part because cuts in domestic programs were offset by an increase of about $5 billion for Pentagon programs.
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When projected emergency contingency spending overseas is figured in by the budget office, estimated outlays for this year will actually increase by more than $3 billion.
There are longer term effects that restrain spending. Albert Einstein is said to have said that the only true miracle in the universe is compound interest. That’s apocryphal, of course, but it is true that cuts in baseline expenditures in discretionary spending will propagate through the years to come:
The agreement does put the brakes on what had been a steady growth in spending by federal agencies. Future savings would be greater as the cuts took hold — a point Republican aides emphasized by noting that the plan is estimated to cut spending by $312 billion over the next decade.
Sounds like a lot of money. At least, so says those members of the GOP, who quail before the wrath of the pitchfork brigade that they’ve turned into their base. Hence nonsense like this:
“Big stuff,” said Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican and leading conservative.
Yeah, I know. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.
Except that $312 billion, for all that it could buy is …
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